Boundaries
by gabs88
Summary: One shots based in or after the season nine finale.
1. Boundaries

**Title: **Boundaries  
**Author: **gabs88  
**Summary: **Darker post season nine piece from Teddy's Point of view, Arizona makes an appearance as does Addison. Please read the note before reading.  
**Rating: **M-swearing, drinking, sexual themes, angry people  
**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to ABC/Shonda Rhimes. This story is not for profit and made purely for entertainment value/I needed some fluff.

_**Warning: this story could have some triggers for self harm and anorexia.  
**_  
**Note: **This is one of quite a few darker one shots (that don't link to each other) that I've written among all the drama and angst of the season nine finale episodes. I'm not sure if I'll post all of them, I suppose it depends on the reception.

Imagine Private Practice has never happened, because I've never watched it and I wanted Addison in this so just made it happen. Heh. :)

**Boundaries**

I'm possibly the worst friend to ever be.

Which is unfair, as she was never anything but a great friend to me. When _he_ died she picked me up, multiple times. I slept on her and Callie's couch more than I care to remember and she literally pulled me off the bathroom floor at work even more. When I had moments where I would be standing, staring at the wall and unable to snap myself out of it, she'd appear in front of me, all blonde hair and dimples and suddenly the softness of Sofia would be in my arms and there is nothing like a baby to wake you up.

And I've abandoned her.

Of course I know about the plane crash.

Owen emailed me.

They were stuck out there four days. He told me what Cristina told him, animals eating Lexie's remains, Meredith being almost catatonic, Yang being actually catatonic, Derek ruining his hand, Arizona with her femur through her thigh trying to keep a dying Mark awake and with her.

And Arizona lost her leg.

And Mark died.

And everything was so fucked up.

And still I never called.

Instead, I increased how much Xanax I took and went back to fucking Addison.

Oh, yeah. That.

I ended up in L.A. I craved sun and sand and desert and the days before Owen was drowning in PTSD and before Cristina and before Henry stole a part of me that died with him. There was no way I'd pass a psych evaluation, though, I'd lied about the job because I just needed out. So I went for somewhere else with sand and sun and completely different to Seattle and Henry.

And I met Addison.

I knew of her, vaguely, from the admiration in Callie's voice when she spoke of her. Sometimes I swore it was more than admiration, but I had kept that thought to myself.

I met a redhead in a bar and it had been almost a year since I'd had sex, yet the idea of another man made me feel nauseated, because he wouldn't be Henry. The redhead was talkative and liked her gin with soda, not tonic, like I did. She left me toying with the idea of reliving my college days. I took her in the bathroom, learning that riding a girl is like riding a bicycle: a slightly wobbly start, but in the end you're moving along with a smile on your face like you've been doing it forever.

She came on my hand and then returned the favour with her tongue.

I was still panting, skirt hitched up, when the redhead with legs that went for days fixed her shirt and kissed me, leaving the bathroom and leaving me with the taste of myself on my lips.

I returned to that bar repeatedly, as did she, and months later, here we are.

We don't talk about the men that have left us, that have destroyed us and broken us and made us and fixed us and and fucked us and gone. She never speaks of Derek, the man she felt she should have loved, and Mark the one she did love but couldn't let herself. I never speak of Henry, and what he was to me, or Owen and how he broke me, and we never speak of the link of Mark, because that's all just too fucked up, even for us.

I don't comment on the scars on her thighs, razor thin and straight. They're healed, but not old enough to make me think it was a teenage stupidity. She doesn't speak of how when she runs her hands down my sides, leaving a trail of goosebumps, she could count my ribs easily, one by one, a bony testament to what plagues my insides.

We did speak of Callie, and we did speak of Arizona.

I told her what I knew and her face had darkened-Callie, she said, would mess this up by trying to help, too good not to know when to back off.

Arizona, I said, would mess this up by trying to be who her wife wanted to be, rather than who she needed to be.

But I still didn't call _her_.

When I got the news, I thought she'd be dead, and I swear my heart had stopped

As a cardiothoracic surgeon, I can tell you that yes, that can actually happen. A severe emotional response sending an electro pulse through your autonomic system and bam, your heart skips a beat.

In kind, it's like it's stopped for a moment.

And mine did.

I found out she was alive and realised she probably wished she wasn't, and it had skipped again.

Arizona would be broken.

I could just see it.

That woman was full of pride and perk and ability. All that covered up a complex little personality buried under it all that a lot of people didn't see.

Losing her limb had probably broken her.

And still I didn't pick up a phone.

I didn't before the crash, because I didn't want to put my utter brokenness on her world. I didn't want to smear her and Callie's lives with the anger and the grief and sadness that coats my own.

And now I can't, because I'm beyond helping myself, let alone anyone else.

And she'll need help.

And she won't get it, either.

Like I haven't.

Like Addison hasn't.

Addison doesn't want me to fix her. We are a balm for each other, a band aid over gaping wounds that will never heal. Necrotic flesh and puss and we are never going to be the people we were meant to be, which is how we be the people we are together. We have zero expectations, we ask nothing and give nothing but harsh orgasms and harsher kisses.

Two miscarriages for Addison that broke her, and then there are the men.

A war that left me shattered, in a quieter way than Owen, and then the men.

When her nails scratch down my back, leaving a red path that sometimes draws blood, I shudder and ask for it harder. Her fingers are rough and her teeth bite and when I fuck her, I fuck her like I can fill the void that's left her as numb as I am.

I never wanted to be this broken.

And now Arizona is and I have a missed call from her and I need to call her back.

Because she's legless and she'll be broken and I'll want to help her and I can't.

And she'll want to fix me when she's completely broken herself and I don't want to be fixed. I'm lost in the safety of my misery.

Two broken people can not mend each other.

But I can't ignore her.

She's not called, once. Or emailed or messaged.

So this call means something. I need to call her back.

I had a voice mail from Callie, at the start.

That woman just utterly breaks my heart. Her voice wavered and I could just imagine her eyes when she spoke, broken and torn and begging. She wanted me to visit, to pull Arizona out of the bed because she couldn't and Sofia couldn't and she wanted her wife back.

Her voice had cracked over that last word, a plea, almost.

I didn't call back, because how do I tell her that I know her wife is gone for good? How do I tell her that I know Arizona well enough to know that she's going to be pretend she's still herself until it destroys her, all for Callie. It'll destroy her and in the process it'll destroy Callie and Sofia and their bubble.

How do you tell Callie Torres that?

That woman's been through enough.

Addison called Callie back, returning the multiple missed calls.

She's better at it, than I am.

She has it together that little bit more, she's is mildly less broken and therefore, she spewed lies at Callie like she was offering her peace.

I heard her say it'll all be okay.

It made me so angry she came in to her living room to find me drinking her tequila bottle dry. Her raised eyebrows questioned me and I asked her, "How the fuck do you lie to her like that?"

And she had shrugged, a look on her face, and said, "How do I not?"

She'd taken the bottle and sipped it, barely a grimace, then kissed me, tequila washing over my tongue like a salve. Her hands had pushed my skirt up, her fingers had been hard and I rode them until we ended up on the floor, her hand up my skirt as I straddled her, my fingers on her under her jeans, and our hips move almost viciously.

It was one of those painful releases, as most are with us, cathartic and destructive and cruel, leaving you craving that feeling again and again. That feeling as you hover on the edge, your body not knowing which way to fall and for that moment, there is nothing but her and I and the feeling of her wrapped around my fingers. Nothing else exists.

We claw for that moment, all the time, both of us living in an existence where we want to escape our realities.

I got my shit together.

I called her back.

Sitting on my floor, I hadn't seen Addison a few days, and I called her back.

Arizona and I had never spoken about the night I kissed her in the bathroom at Joes.

She had let me, and I thank her for that.

She hadn't pulled away or reproached me or yelled at me or slapped me.

Henry had been dead three months and she had found my at the bar that has seen too many doctors fall to pieces, drunk and sad and probably looking lost with my stupid eyes that give too much away. Doe like, I've heard.

She'd smiled and said it, saying my eyes were wide, like a deer's.

She tried to make me laugh, calling me Bambi. Her fingers ran down my cheek, she looked heartbroken on my behalf, and she murmured, "You look innocent and broken, Bambi. How's the world keep kicking you down?"

There was so much affection in her words that I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand being looked at like that when Henry couldn't look at me at all, and I'd ran to the bathroom, the world feeling like it was suffocating me.

She had followed, because she is that complexly good.

She had followed and hugged me and I pulled back and kissed her.

I kissed her because, fuck I was lonely and sad and craved touch and affection and because God, I don't know.

Because.

That's why.

She didn't move. She had stood still under me, her lips not responding, barely, and when I pulled back she looked at me and said, "You don't want that." Her eyes had looked at me, so damn blue, "And I'm not a cheater, I'm just not. I love her."

Only I did want that, but no, she wasn't a cheater, she's not. Her moral compass is strong.

I called her with that memory playing on my mind.

She answered on the third ring and her voice was utterly broken, "Teddy?"

And that, there, was why I hadn't called her.

I knew her too well and she knew me and we were both broken and shattered and we'd be no good to each other.

Which is probably why she hadn't called me, for almost a year.

Because she knew it and I knew it.

But she called, after not calling for so long.

And that's why I answered.

Because she called.

Simple, really.

"Arizona."

"I have really, really fucked up."

She is not a cheater.

But now she is.

That says more than I wished it did.

I picked her up at the bus station, her limp with her prosthetic was barely noticeable.

I slept with a guy from our platoon once, who had lost a leg. He was full of anger and retribution, but had made love to me like I was made of glass, and I held him afterwards while he cried. He had had a wife and kid back home, but had left them, he said, because they deserved more than a man so dead inside.

She stood in front of me and we sized each other up. She saw, no doubt, my thinness, the bruise on my neck, and who knows what my eyes are like, anymore.

I doubt I look like Bambi.

She's thin and she looks hard.

She doesn't look like Arizona.

There is something in her eye, she's gone.

She's changed.

Arizona had been perky, yes, had been bubbly and bright and fun and gave up anything and everything for her wife. She had stayed with her wife when she was pregnant with another man's baby, for crying out loud.

That's who this woman had been.

But what had drawn me to her, was there was a hardness underneath, she was complicated and a little selfish and fierce and complex.

It is the best word I can think of for this woman.

Complex.

Now what was underneath, that gave her edge, is all she is now. Her shiny outer coating is gone, faded to a layer so fine I don't think she's even aware of its existence anymore.

A plane fell from the sky and destroyed this woman.

She fell in to me, and God, she was light.

Her face pressed in to my neck and my fingers dug in to her skin and I'm really not sure how I held us both up, but I did.

And then she's pulled back, cocking her head and looking at me.

"I fucked her in an on call room while my wife and child were in the same building."

I just looked at her.

"Who does that?"

Her voice was hoarse, tight with emotion. I blinked.

"I don't do that, Teddy."

I nod.

She pauses, her face almost surprised.

"I never came back from that crash."

It's almost like I'm her psychiatrist and she is sitting there, only now realising something that I knew had occurred the second I found out what had happened. Before I'd even seen her.

It's like she's processing, right here in front of me, truth falling painfully from her tongue.

How did it take her this long?

I look at her, really look at her.

"You tried to be you."

She nodded, her voice is shredded, it sounds like she's been screaming, "I tried. She wanted me to try. How-" She looked up towards the sky, and then at me, her face so angry, eyes raw, "How the fuck do I love her and hate so much, at the same time?"

I took her hand, and I pulled her to the exit.

We drive mostly in silence.

At my apartment, I pull the wine from the fridge, prepared for this.

She sat at the counter, perched on a stool, pulling a bottle of tequila from her bag.

Why start easy?

I pour us a glass of wine each and we use it as a chaser.

The first two shots go down easy.

"So she told you to get out?"

The second two even more so.

Arizona sucks salt off her hand and throws a shot back, the lemon is between her lips, and she stares at the counter top, "No. She might have, but I left her. I broke her heart, I screamed at her, things I hadn't even realised I felt. And then I walked out. It's been two weeks and our contact is that we exchange Sofia like she's property."

She sips her wine and finally looks at me, and she's so hollow it's haunting, "I had to leave."

I nod, "I get that."

She tilted her head in that way she does when she's figuring you out, "I know you do. You did it, too." She's looking at me too closely, I had forgotten she could do that, "Has it worked?"

"No." I take a shot without the salt or lemon, needing to burn this truth out of me, "But it's better than sitting_ there _and being smothered by it."

She nods and drinks more wine, already we are both fuzzy, "I slept with Lauren again, a few days after leaving her. Just to see if it was about her." I stay silent, and I watch how much she hates herself. Th next words are quiet, "It wasn't about her."

I nodded and pour her another shot. The bottle is half empty, and I feel that way, too.

"So then I slept with this blonde in the bathroom, to see if it was about sex."

A pass her the salt and she does her shot, lick, sip, suck like it's a prayer. She doesn't chase it, and to be honest I think she's so used to holding things in it doesn't matter what she swallows. She's been swallowing the truth for a year, lived with the burning in her throat.

I shoot my glass and listen.

"It wasn't about the sex." She turns to me, imploring, "So why do I keep fucking bar sluts? If Ca-if she finds out, it'll break her. But I can't stop."

"Maybe you want to hurt her?"

She blinks at the shock of the words, "There has to be another reason."

I nod, "I'm sleeping with Addison, so don't ask me."

She stops then, a glass part way to her lips. There's salt on her bottom lip, and I want to suck it off. She actually smiles, the first one, and gives a short burst of a laugh.

"Well, Teddy, I always wondered about you."

I watch her take the shot and her tongue goes out, swiping off that grain.

I almost groan in disappointment.

"So you have a girlfriend?"

I snort a laugh, "No. We are just each on the same level of fucked up."

She stared at her wine glass, swirling the liquid around. When did she refill it?

"I see your fucked up, and raise you just fucked." Her voice is quiet, distant. She checks out so easily.

I lean forward, my hand on her thigh, the right one, the one she still has a whole one of, "No. You don't get to claim all the fucked up."

And in leaning forward, I've moved my face so close to hers, so that when she turns our faces are inches apart. Her eyes are dark and lost and deep and we are both flushed from the alcohol. I lean forward, and she doesn't lean back.

She shakes her head, "Teddy. I'm not good. I'm not good, for you."

"Shut up, Arizona."

And then my lips are on hers, and there's that moment, like in Joes, where she responds but doesn't respond and then something in her snaps.

Something snaps that I think snaps easily for her, these days.

And she leans forward, her tongue in my mouth, tasting of tequila, the story of the women in my life.

Her hands tangle in my hair and pull me in and God, I don't know when I started wanting this but it feels like forever.

I pull her up and guide her backwards, and some how we are on the bed. Her pants are down, and it's strange that it is this leg that has done this to her, brought her here, led us to be stripping naked on my bed when we both know we shouldn't, yet she doesn't seem to care about having her pants off.

How many bar women did it take for that?

Or had she managed that already?

My mouth is on hers and we are both fumbling with her prosthetic, pulling at velcro and straps until it off and falling away. My lips are on her neck and she's pulled my shirt off and she asks, breathless, at the point where it's apparent I don't, "Do you care?"

I pull back and look at her, my hand on that thigh, skin smooth and amazing even if it's all she has left of that limb. She looks at me and bites her lip, her eyes barely unsure. And I realise, it's not that she's worried about it on her part, she doesn't want to put me off. Because no matter where she's at with her confidence with this, her leg is defining her.

Doesn't she realise how much else defines her? What everyone else sees?

The hard truth is no, she doesn't.

I answer her by gripping her skin, nails in, and watch her pupils dilate as I fall on her.

Because no, I don't care at all.

We are so destructive, we'll risk destroying each other and the fragile bond that's between us.

Though, I realise, as her fingers slide in to me, fracturing me apart while somehow bringing me back together, that it's not a fragile bond. We've been here, the whole time, protecting each other with our absence.

And now, we're trying to salvage what's left of who we were and find it in each other. And neither of us expect each other to be those people, anyway, which is why, maybe, it feels like Arizona is breathing for the first time since she felt turbulence hit her plane.

I come harder than I thought I could, and she follows not long after as I straddle her lap, two fingers buried in her and my thumb against her clit.

And there, in my arms, a sob leave her throat and her forehead falls against my collarbone. I can't help but wonder if she's done this, yet, at all.

I don't think she would have. At least not on someone, at least not where someone can see and wrap their arms around her.

And when I drop her back at the bus port tomorrow, her to go back to her life to try and fix it, and me to Addison, I doubt we'll speak of this again.

And that's okay.

Two broken people can not mend each other.

But maybe two broken people can be one almost whole one.

Even with her back in her life and me in mine.

####


	2. Life

**Title: **Life  
**Author: **gabs88  
**Summary: **Post season nine, a glimpse at Callie's turmoil.  
**Rating: **M  
**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to ABC/Shonda Rhimes. This story is not for profit and made purely for entertainment value.

_**Warning: this story could have some triggers for self harm/pill abuse  
**_  
**Note: **This is the only Callie centric dark piece I've written. I did it as I was delving in to depressive Arizona a lot and wanted the challenge of this. Again, please note, these aren't necessarily how I think the characters will be post the finale or how I think they should be. It's just an experiment in dark angsty stuff, a bit of a writing exercise when I'm blocked. Please don't read if you don't enjoy darker pieces, these won't be your cup of tea :).

Thanks for all the feedback on the last one, guys, glad you enjoyed. I was hesitant to post these, so thanks :) These are fun to write, different.

**Life**

Callie downs the shots one by one like a child stealing extra candy at Halloween-guiltless and with utter abandon.

Because why shouldn't she?

Her daughter is with her other Mother.

Fuck, she wishes she was the type to use a child against a person, because she really, really wants to at the moment. It's what would hurt _her_ the most, but Callie is just not that person. She wants her to hurt, but she could never use their daughter against her. What would it make her, to claim now, that she wasn't really her other mother? Because she is her Mama, no matter how angry Callie is at her.

It feels like her wife not only cheated on her though, but also on their daughter. She cheated on their family, but being an adult means not lashing out and playing games when kids are involved.

Being an adult also means keeping your fingers out of specialist surgeon's pants who aren't your wife's, but whatever.

So Callie is left with no weapon, nothing to fight with, and that makes her even angrier and she downs another shot.

Cristina comes out with her, on these nights Callie leaves Sofia with her adulteress of a wife, and together they reenact the days they lived together

Only now, they're both angrier and meaner.

Cristina finally ended it with Owen, possibly making the hardest decision she had ever made and walking away from him.

Callie is done.

The alcohol burns her throat and makes her eyes water and that's how she knows she needs more, because she can still feel it.

Mark would be ashamed of her.

But he's not fucking here and Callie really is so God damn alone.

God Damn, Daddy.

Because her Faith is seriously being tested.

God damn or Damn God, she's on board with either.

because He's damned her.

Her husband fucked his best friend, because _'she's Izzy' _and stupid Callie had asked him, _'what does that make me?'_.

It made her divorced and damaged, that's what it did.

And still she'd said the stupid words about believing in love and second chances.

Then a blonde heart surgeon-ironic, because Callie was fairly certain she didn't have her own heart-had left her in a car park looking like a fool because Callie refused to be anyone but herself.

She'd been cut down and trod on.

And then her ex husband had died. And then her trust was blown out of the water while she was left, standing alone in an airport with nothing to go back to but belongings in storage and a subleted apartment.

Then a plane had fallen from the sky, taking her best friend and leaving her with a wife who wasn't her wife anymore.

That plane crashed and it changed them all, every last one of them. Callie may have been lucky enough to not have been on the plane, but emotionally that plane ploughed in to her heart and her life and left behind a smoking ruin of a mess Callie didn't recognise anymore.

Sometimes she wishes she was on the plane, to have something physical to show for how absolutely fucked everything is.

She doesn't believe in second chances now.

And love? Besides the love Callie felt for her daughter, she had no idea if that really existed any more.

She was thankful, for Sofia.

That little girl was all that was getting Callie up in the mornings.

The night she found out, the storm battering the world down outside, Arizona exploding at her in an on call room, Callie went numb, and she wasn't sure she had stopped being numb.

She had turned and walked away, Arizona's pleas following her.

Her hand had wrapped around the stupid pendant sitting heavily against her clavicle and yanked, letting it fall between her fingers.

She didn't look back.

Because she was done.

She was not a perfect person.

Callie knew that, sometimes, she could be self involved, she could be obnoxious and one sighted.

But damn it, she did not deserve what life had thrown at her.

Not even a bit of it.

Two affairs, soon to be two divorces.

She snorted as she took another shot.

Their marriage wasn't even legally recognised by the state, it was such a sham.

How painful that she'd been thinking of Arizona to repeat the wedding, after everything they'd been through, now it would all be legal.

How _fucking_ painful.

The alcohol wasn't burning anymore.

Two divorces.

One ex spouse dead.

The other dead on the inside.

One dead best friend.

She screwed her eyes up and took another shot.

She missed Mark more than she could even think about, the thought of him taking her breath away at random times. That man was her rock. He wasn't perfect, and neither was she, but they had each others backs in a way that was never questioned. He loved her, fierce and protective.

He was her person, and he was dead.

Lexie was dead.

George was dead.

Arizona died with her leg.

Her Arizona did, anyway.

And, her fingers wrapped around the neck of the tequila bottle as she poured her and Cristina another shot, it wasn't just the cheating that showed her Arizona was dead.

Because if she was really, painfully honest with herself, Callie knew she'd been dead along time before.

And Arizona had tried, harder than Callie probably realised, to be that Arizona. And Callie, desperate for her wife, had taken everything she'd given, and then asked for more.

If it hadn't have been Lauren, it would have been someone else.

Or something else.

Who fucking knew.

Callie, that night, had walked out in to the storm, Sofia safe in the daycare.

She'd almost been blown down the road.

She'd made it to their apartment and ended up in their bathroom, staring at her wild face and really not recognising herself, pale and with hair plastered to her forehead.

She was numb.

Callie was done.

She was done being the one who stood by no matter what.

She was done being trodden on and walked over and fucked over.

She was so done.

The cabinet door opened easily and there, lined in rows, high out of reach, sat Arizona's pain medications.

Her wife had been in a cloud of drugs for months after the accident.

A lot of the bottles now were full, rarely needed.

Callie opened one and stared inside, the tiny pills filling it up to the brim.

Her hand tipped the on to her palm, some over flowing and clattering in to the sink.

She was just. So. Done.

She tipped her head back as she pushed the whole handful in her mouth, running the tap and tilting her head to the water. She opened her eyes and saw Sofia's bath duck staring at her, judgement written all over its stupid yellow face.

She spat all the pills in to the toilet, then made herself throw up just to be sure.

She emptied her stomach easily, and once she started she couldn't stop.

She judged herself, for going to do that.

Poor Sofia.

Her father was dead and her mothers were falling apart around her.

She struggled to remember there was a time where she had just felt _so lucky._ So _blessed_.

Arizona could shove her prosthesis up her ass.

Callie was always the nice one.

She was so committed.

So loyal.

And she was done.

Then, in a bout of spiteful revenge, she'd fucked someone in the toilets. She'd gone home and thrown up again, after.

Because it wasn't her.

It wasn't her and her betrayer of a heart still thought it belonged to a blonde who had ripped it out without a second thought.

She wasn't a one night stand person. She didn't do casual.

The most casual thing she ever had was Mark, and he had swiftly become one of the most important people in her life.

Callie didn't recognise herself anymore.

She'd taken her wifes leg, just ask her. In doing so, because she was selfish and wanted Arizona _alive_ legless or not, she had taken something huge from her wife.

At least she was alive.

Even that thought made her laugh.

Callie was feeling irreparably broken, and so was Arizona.

Cristina dances like a demon, men fall all over her and Callie moves her hips in away that has people grabbing for her.

And she needs this, tonight, more than ever, to forget what she did yesterday.

She behaved in a way that just broke everything in her that had still been _her._

In an on call room, trying to sleep, she'd heard the door open and looked up, seeing Arizona standing there, hand on the door knob, frozen. They stared at each other for a moment, neither having spoken about anything besides Sofia in weeks. They had even managed to never be alone together. Callie thought, sometimes, that there was too much between them. Sometimes, she even wondered if what Arizona had screamed at her in that on call room had only been the start of something.

Arizona finally opened her mouth, "Shit. Sorry, I'll go."

Callie sat up, "No stay, I was getting up anyway."

Arizona had looked at her, head tilted, "Are you sure?"

Callie nodded, standing up and pulling her lab coat on.

She needed to not be in a room with her.

She could smell her, and she smelt so familiar it made Callie's chest ache. How could she miss her so much, yet then she looked at her and felt physically sick?

Because this wasn't her wife, looking at her.

Callie went to walk out, to walk past her, and paused at the words that fell from Arizona lips, as if unable to help it. They hadn't spoken of it, not once.

Arizona had come home, Sofia on her hip, to find three suitcases, all her things, in front of her apartment door. She'd knocked and Callie had answered, taking Sofia and slamming the door shut when Arizona had tried to speak.

Callie shut her down so many times after that, Arizona stopped trying.

And it didn't take her long to stop trying, either.

They talked Sofia. That was all.

"I never wanted to hurt you."

Callie paused then, anger boiling under her skin like it was all the time, now. Her fingers rested on the wood of the door, above Arizona's hand, and Callie had completely switched off, then. Something flicked and that was it. She pushed on the door and Arizona got the hint, letting it go to swing shut.

Callie looked at her, then. The blue of her eyes hurt her to look at now, the intensity almost making her wince. Callie didn't feel safe, or loved, or any of that romantic bullshit.

She felt angry and sad and fucking betrayed.

Arizona looked at her apprehensively, waiting for the yelling. Waiting for the angry words, the tears, the fight.

She looked like she'd welcome it.

Callie knew Arizona wanted to work on it, work on them. She wanted a second (wouldn't this be her _third?) _chance.

She stood, waiting, and Callie had nothing for her.

She'd given it all and Arizona had spat it back at her.

She moved forward then, pressing Arizona against the wall behind her, hand instinctively coming up to her hip to steady her, their renewed passion before Arizona gave that passion over to someone else having taught her how to sleep with her wife who was missing a leg.

Against the wall worked well, they had discovered. Arizona could balance, hold on to something, just press her palms flat against the wall, or hold on to Callie, and she was fine.

Callie pressed her lips to Arizona's, angry and bitter and hoping it hurt. Arizona, to her credit, kissed her back, taking whatever Callie gave her.

Maybe she thought it was it, maybe Arizona thought they'd do this and at least open things up to talk, to be on the path to being okay.

But Callie honestly didn't think she'd ever be okay again.

Arizona had been the only one Callie had really thought wouldn't hurt her.

Arizona had pled with her, after Africa. Had married her. Had spewed promises at her.

And then she had fucked a blonde thing called Lauren while Callie had been in the same building. While Sofia had been in the same building.

Her teeth bit at Arizona's lips, her hands slid against her ribs, nails scraping down her skin. Arizona was clinging on to her, fingers digging in to her neck, hands tugging at her hair.

Callie had put her hand down her pants and found her wet already, Arizona's hips bucking against her fingers as she had slid in to her with two of them, no warning, and Arizona had cried out.

Jesus, she was so wet.

Callie curled her fingers, she knew her wife. She knew what made her come fast and hard, she knew how to drag her to the edge and leave her there, desperate to fall over but loving the feeling of being perched on that edge.

Callie pumped her hand and Arizona, against her ear, had gasped her name, just once, "Callie."

And Callie couldn't hear that.

Had she said Lauren's name? Had she let her fuck her with her fingers, or her tongue, or both? Had Arizona put her lips to the other woman's clit, her tongue? Had they been fast, or had Arizona savored it? Savored having another woman on her, under her? Callie pulled her hand out so quickly Arizona gasped. She stood back, a full step back, away from her.

Arizona was standing, looking at her, lips bruised dark, cheeks flushed, hair messed at one side where Callie had held her still. Her palms were flat to the wall behind her, finger tips digging in, where she'd grabbed for purchase to stay upright at Callie's sudden retreat.

Her fingers were wet with her, and Callie couldn't look at her anymore.

This was not her wife.

Callie was not her wife.

And she had turned and left, door closing with a bang behind her.

Life had made her someone she didn't like.

So tonight, she'd drink.

####


	3. Angry

**Title: **Angry  
**Author: **gabs88  
**Summary: **Arizona post season nine.  
**Rating: **M  
**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to ABC/Shonda Rhimes. This story is not for profit and made purely for entertainment value/I needed some fluff.  
**Note:** Exploring the incredibly angry side of Arizona. Be angry, Arizona! Or so is the theme of this piece. Not Calzona. Again, just playing with themes and ideas, not necessarily my thoughts on how the characters are/should be.

Thank you for your ongoing feedback :). It's great to know some people enjoy these.

**Angry**

I didn't even regret it.

The words had tumbled out of my mouth and I couldn't help the strangled 'oh God' that followed them, because they were things I had kept so locked up and tamped down I forgot I had even thought them.

But I still didn't regret it.

I was tired.

Tired and sick of it and I just didn't have it in me to bury it anymore. I'd buried for years and I was choking on so much unsaid.

I do not blame Callie for my cheating. I'm adult enough, an honest enough person, to not blame her for it. I had acted out like a child and fucked Lauren because she made me feel like I didn't have to suck it up and get my shit together and be the person Callie wanted me to be. I think that's why I did. Honestly I don't even know why or how. How could I do that? It's not me, I don't cheat, I am not an adulteress.

It's not me.

Yet I did it. And that's a really scary thought.

I was sitting there and wanting to apologise and Callie looked so fucking broken and I felt the clench in my gut that _I_ had caused Callie's face to look that heartbroken and _I _had royally screwed over the woman who loved me like nothing else.

Only, sometimes, I still had that unsettled feeling that Callie loved me because I was there, not because I am _me. _Or that she had stayed because, God, she felt obliged. How can leave the cripple?

Or maybe that is just me desperately looking for more things to be angry about.

Because anger is just such an easy emotion to lose myself in.

And fuck, I am so angry.

I'd sat and taken what Callie had thrown at me with that sad, pleading, breaking voice and then she mentioned the plane crash.

And I snapped.

And I couldn't regret it because the second those words were out of me I felt like I could breath for the first time since I woke up on the ground with my bone through my thigh.

I'd woken up screaming and sometimes wonder if, inside, I ever stopped.

I can still hear Lexi Grey's flesh being chewed on by animals.

I can still hear Meredith sob for her, and then see the look on her face as she couldn't cry any more and had to listen to it, too.

I can still remember opening eyes that felt glued together to see Cristina standing, wavering on the spot in the middle of us all with her eyes glued to the sky.

I can still feel Mark, the life fading out of him as I plead with him to live.

To live for all of them.

Callie.

Callie had _not_ been on that fucking plane.

And now I am living in the apartment across the hall from the apartment only part of me feels like I want to be back in. I'm in the apartment where my daughter was conceived and Mark's ghost still lingers and I'm trying to pretend I don't feel trapped.

I never let Lauren over here. My daughter is too close and I would never purposefully hurt Callie like that, even though some small, overly honest part of myself knows part of sleeping with Lauren maybe _was_ to hurt Callie.

We sleep together in Lauren's hotel room.

It's always fast, harsh. She runs a hand softly down my back afterwards, or presses her face against my neck and tries to turn it in to something it's not and I roll away and pull my clothes on and leave.

I don't know why I go back.

I think I want to feel like I didn't throw away everything I thought made me happy for nothing.

Or maybe she's someone I can bury my anger in. She welcomes it, invests in it, where Callie would turn away and beg me with silent eyes to make the anger I couldn't control stop. That was what she wanted from me in the earlier months, when my anger controlled me. She's always wanted me to be her white knight, her saviour, and I have twisted myself around to be that person more times than I can count. I gave and gave to her and that's largely my own fault. In that situation, someone can't take unless you give.

It wasn't about Lauren.

Callie and I trade Sofia off with false smiles we wear for her and don't speak a word beyond the necessities. Callie, for once, no longer knows what to say and I, too, am at a loss.

I'm torn in every fucking direction and I swear to a God I'm not even that big on that soon I'll be shredded apart and left as nothing. Part of me wants back in that apartment, wants the routine of my wife and my daughter. I want sleepy sex after a long day and dishes and laundry and the sound of nursery rhymes. I want to smile and live with my wife and not look at her like she took everything that was me. That part is tiny compared to the part that has had enough, that can't do it anymore. That looks at Callie and sees the woman that betrayed my trust. The one thing I asked of her, ever, and she broke that promise. A promise I should never have made her make, I know. I see the woman who, while she wasn't holding the scalpel, may as well have had it in her hand and shoved it through my chest. I see the woman who hasn't heard what I've been saying for years, so I chose silence. The times I've spoken, she hasn't heard, or her eyes roll and leave me feeling incensed. A part of me wants to run and never look back. I want to stay and fight for who I was and what I need. I want to work until I can't stand anymore, except that time limit is significantly shorter because I only have one fucking leg. I want to move and start fresh, away from a life I didn't want anyway. But I want my daughter, a solid I can't deny. But then, sometimes, I want to just not be here at all.

I'm pulled every which way and sometimes I feel like I'm going insane.

I swear, my childhood with a father who couldn't do anything but yell or be stony silent, no in between, the death of my brother, the only person I let close to me, my girlfriend falling pregnant when I left her in an airport, a plane falling from the sky, four days in the woods, a wife that never heard what I was saying and the loss of my leg have all culminated to fracture me in to too many different versions and I am so torn at times I want to dig my nails in to my skin, shredding it back to reveal the horrible truth to everyone.

Lauren comes hard and fast, every time. She pulls at my skin and I don't hold back, I use my fingers harder than I should and if I curl them just right, sometimes I'm in that room and out of it in twenty minutes.

After a few weeks, I stopped going there.

I didn't like the feel of her, or the taste or the sound or the look.

It wasn't about Lauren, and I don't know if I'm pleased or disappointed in that fact.

The first time, I had thought it may be about her, because I needed it and her and something to stop this thrumming in my chest. I needed some semblance of control, the irony that in trying to gain it, I lost it, like she wanted me to.

All I did was destroy myself, my marriage and Callie.

So I started sleeping with bar girls, the taste of tequila and bar bitch strong on my tongue. It was hollow and stupid and I don't understand myself.

I figured I slept with them to see if I threw away my marriage for sex. I didn't. The sex was lustless and not what I remember bar sex to be like in my twenties.

So it wasn't for sex and it wasn't for Lauren.

I came to the conclusion I threw it away because I didn't know if I wanted it anymore.

And that, that I can't think about.

The therapist I tried to see, once, told me I was analytically destroying my life to see what was left behind. Ultimately, I was systematically trying everything to find an explanation, when what I need to do is to try to start moving on.

I stopped seeing her quicker than I did the women.

Because how do I move on from just how utterly angry I am at Callie?

And how does she move on from the memory of me sleeping with someone someone else?

I've broken her as she broke me and I don't know if we can be repaired. What scares me is we can't repair together but what if we're irreparable apart, too?

The night I did a really stupid thing, I was in Joe's.

That bar has seen too much of all of us. Some of the best and some of the worst and some of the horrible in between things.

I was on my third shot of tequila, avoiding the darker clubs with the seedier women. I didn't have the energy for that fast fuck in a bathroom. The slip of anonymity in my mouth as I claw to find some semblance of self in the depths of a woman who's name I don't know and whose face I wont remember in the morning. I wanted to sit at a bar and drink and stew. I was done with bar women. I was done with a lot of things.

The bell went over the door and I ignored it. It was a Tuesday evening-everyone I knew was responsible, tied to something. Be it work or family or their children. They had someone to keep them at home or something to keep them at work.

They weren't writing themselves off in bars on a Tuesday evening.

Because we are adults now.

Someone slid in to the chair next to me and I turned my head and blinked.

I couldn't help what fell to my lips, harsh and cruel, "What do _you _want?"

She didn't even blink, "I was worried about you."

"Now? You were worried _now_? Took your time there, Teddy."

The woman thanked Joe as he put down a glass of white wine and I took my fourth tequila shot.

"I didn't hear you calling, Arizona." She looked at me, taking me in, "How are you?"

I gave a laugh. Dry and mirthless, "I'm great."

"You're a mess."

I wheeled around on my chair and looked at her, hating her in that instance so strongly. Her with her whole body and legs that wore those jeans damn well with heels on her two dainty feet, open toed shoes with perfectly manicured nails. I fucking hated her. Where had she been? Best friend? And choking me, rising up in my chest, was the utter desire to fall apart on her. To throw myself forward, in to her chest and break apart, because God, I had missed her, and that made me even angrier.

So I threw it at her.

"You're a bitch."

She laughed then and sipped her wine, "And you're angry." She cocked her head to look at me, "How's that working out for you?"

I turned back to my wine, there to sooth me between my shots and took a long sip. I ignored her.

"How's Lauren?"

I turned back to her like she slapped me and narrowed my eyes, "How's talking to Callie going?"

"She called. She was-not good. She doesn't have anyone, Arizona."

I looked around me at the empty bar, "I wonder how that feels."

"If you'd pull your head out of your ass, you'd see I'm here." I stared her down and she just looked at me, sipping her wine. "I'm here, and not at Callie's."

"Why not? Everyone else is. I'm the pariah of the hospital, you know. Adultery is unforgivable, it would seem."

"Because I know you, and you didn't do this for no good reason. People fuck up, but you? You bury. How much did you bury before it all exploded?"

I couldn't look at her anymore. I didn't like how her words caused my breath to hitch and dug in to me, cutting too close, "Go the fuck home, Teddy."

"No."

She rest a hand on my knee and I shoved it away, turning to her and hissing, "Fuck off, Teddy. Just-go. Go back. Go away from here, because this place? It's already fucked with you enough. And I don't want you here. I didn't ask for you to come."

She stared at me for a moment, before her fingers dug in to my arm and yanked me up. She pulled hard and didn't let me stumble, dragging me in to the bathroom, pushing open the door. She shoved me backwards and then I did stumble, open palms slapping against the slimy wall of this god forsaken bathroom that I wish I'd never stepped foot in years ago. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have started bending so much for so long for a woman that suddenly I'm standing, unrecognisable even to myself.

I glared at her and she stood in front of me, arms crossed and staring me down.

"You're angry. I get that. I've been angry, too. But if you don't stop that, it's going to consume you and you wont know who you are anymore. You'll find yourself not picking up the phone when your best friend is in a plane crash because you _can't_ lose anyone else. You'll make someone's plane crash about you and suddenly you'll realise who you are. And you are so close to that, Arizona."

I glared at her and I felt it flaring. She didn't know me. She didn't know any of this. What, she'd talked to Callie? Heard her side of the story and thought that gave her so much insight in to me and what was going on? Fuck Callie and her fucking thinking she could speak to _my_ friend about this and fuck Teddy for turning up here and thinking she could fix me. My leg is gone and my wife betrayed me and I returned the favour by fucking a blonde in an on call room and offering to cut my wife's leg off. Everything is beyond saving.

"You don't know anything, Teddy."

She is unflinching in the truth she throws back, "I know a lot. I've watched you bend for years, and God only nows how much more you bent after this crash."

I had paused. I had turned from Lauren, I paused and she told me to lose control.

I'm not five. Her saying that didn't tip me over the edge. _It wasn't about her._ I had paused and considered and in that moment I gave up. I gave up and I couldn't bury everything anymore and I made the decision, then, to sleep with her.

And now Teddy is here to what-make me better?

After not hearing from her for almost a year after she just up and left without a goodbye?

I straighten up and step forward. My hand comes up before I can stop it and I rear it back to slap her as hard as I can. Before I can make contact her arm flies up and my wrist hits her forearm, bruising my bone and she just stares at me.

Her eyes are intense and she wont stop looking at me and I can't remember the last time I let someone stare in to my eyes like this. Then I see understanding flash across her eyes and it's like she suddenly gets it. It's like she gets that I'm just fucked and that's all there is to it.

She shoves me backwards, going with me this time and my back collides with the wall and I smile, because that pain is just refreshing. Her body presses flush against mine and she kisses me as if she's a woman who loves women and not one who loves men. Her mouth is soft and firm all at once and her tongue is in my mouth and Teddy's fingers are wrapping in my hair and pulling hard enough to drag a groan from my mouth.

I feel the anger bubbling right beneath the surface and Teddy has just been coaxing it out, like she wants me to bite out and explode and lose it.

And I kind of do.

I push her backward, my arms clinging to her forearms to help me keep my balance and I force her back so her back hits the lip of the sink, hard. She doesn't even make a sound. Her lip bites at mine and my hands tug at her ass until she's sitting on it, hands gripping the edge. Anyone could walk in and I don't give a fuck.

I have the only person who gives a damn about me on the edge of the sink, and one hand is under her shirt and pinching her nipple and the other has undone the button on her jeans and my hand is in her pants.

She hooks her heel in to my ass and spreads herself wider and I have two fingers in her, roughly and fast and at a pace that is called for in drunken, stupid sex and not sober just started sex against a sink in a bathroom. She doesn't protest, though. She arches her back and she's wet and her lips are pressed against my neck, her teeth are biting my shoulder and I just want to shatter her. I want to shatter her and break her and make her feel like I do. Make her feel torn in so many directions it feels she's going to break. My hand is up and pressed against the mirror behind her for leverage and she is moving against my hand and I'm lost in her.

And then she does break. She comes against my hand, so tight around my fingers it hurts and her nails are crawling at my back as she arches her back again.

And still she hasn't made a noise as I all but freaking molested her.

Her forehead is heavy on my stinging shoulder and I'm looking over hers, my hand now pressed against the glass I'd used for leverage, right next to my reflection. I'm staring right at myself and I can't take the look in my eye. They're dark, blue, my cheeks a tinged pink and there's a hardness to my features I didn't know could be there.

I pull my hand out, and that does make her gasp, barely.

I step back and look at her.

She's clinging to the metal basin to hold herself there now I've gone. Her shirt's dishevelled and her pants are undone. Her lip has a spot of blood on it where I bit her and a bruise is darkening on her neck I don't even remember my mouth causing.

I stare at her and look at her eyes, this time not thinking what she's seeing but I look at her and realise the woman I just tried to break apart, because I needed someone to feel as fractured as _I_ do, already feels like that.

It's all there, in her eyes. She's as fucked and fractured and ruined as I am.

There's an anger, just below the surface.

I stare at her and my fingers raise to my lips. I pull them back and can smell her all over me, the tang of sex, and there's a spot of blood on my own lip I missed when I got lost in my own eyes.

I stare at her for a minute.

I can't be here. I can't be here, near her. I break things. I ruin people and situations and I can't be here. My breath is about to explode out my lungs and the look on her face is tearing me apart.

And then I turn, and leave, arm shoving the door aside. I barely hear it, I thump in to the door that hard.

"Arizona."

####


	4. Excuses

**Title: **Excuses  
**Author: **gabs88  
**Summary: **post episode 9x23  
**Rating: **M  
**Disclaimer: **All characters belong to ABC/Shonda Rhimes. This story is not for profit and made purely for entertainment value/I needed some fluff.  
**Note:** More post season nine processing. Don't read if you want happy Calzona :). Thanks for the ongoing feedback on these, it seems a few people like a bit of dark angst. This was written pre 9x24. I understand if people don't want to read it considering that epic blow up they had in canon. I had forgotten I had this one and just thought I'd post it.

Sorry to the person that requested I untag Callie from this-however, she is a character in some of these one shots. One of them is even told from her POV. Addison and Teddy are also tagged in them on this site. Her being tagged does not mean a Callie and Arizona pairing, just that she is a player in the writing. Sorry if this bothers you. I purposefully don't tag this under 'calzona' in Tumblr, however.

Would anyone be interested in dark and twisty takes on their other break ups? Say season six and modifying some events in season seven? Playing with these two as angry, dark characters is a little fun.

**Excuses**

I'm full of excuses as to why I did it.

They threaten to spill from my mouth whenever I meet accusing eyes. They squash my tongue, almost spill, the weight of them so heavy the words would clatter on the tile. The kind of noise that catches your attention, but makes you wince. So confronting, you find yourself turning away, as if you hadn't noticed and it excused you.

I spilled them at Callie, even though I know I had no right. Those dark eyes bore in to me from across the room, and I couldn't bite them back. They had sat at the back of my throat all year, piled on top of other words I never spoke the year before and the year before that. God knows how far back those choked on words go.

Now, finally, they have spilled forth. Thrown at doe eyes that tear me apart.

Apologies followed, words that couldn't fix a fucking thing. And even though I knew each one of them were useless, knew that none should be spoken with our child in the next room, I threw them out at her anyway, desperate.

Some I did bite back, and others I spoke.

None of them helped.

What could?

I hadn't felt attractive since I woke up with most of my left leg missing. I blamed, even if I knew I shouldn't, my wife who gave the word.

Still.

Even though I'd made her promise the impossible.

Shame grew harshly, but I had honestly meant that I didn't want to live without my leg.

We had moved forward, or, on the outside, had seemed to; but that feeling never left. It clawed at my chest, waking me up some nights and leaving me breathless, grasping at nothing. I'd wake up so angry, it consumed me; the days I wasn't angry, I was terrified. Life changing, horrible luck, earth shattering circumstances, it had all come to mean more to me than I would ever wish on anyone.

I even tried to word that fear to her, and even that she shot down when she heard it.

She even rolled her eyes.

So I forced those words back down to join the others. I lived to make her comfortable and it was a habit I had trouble kicking.

A father so lost to his life in the war he was all sharp words and sharper looks. A mother who tiptoed, a teacher in not rocking the boat. A childhood spent erratically, dragged from place to place. My other half, my brother, blown to pieces in a desert he had gone to help. A baby I had wanted in other ways, but would never trade for anything. Two men, one a life long friend and one thrust upon me, dead in horrific ways. My leg, burnt to ashes in an incinerator.

My wife, looking at me like I've utterly betrayed her.

Which I have.

People dropped around me like flies.

In the night, Callie fast asleep next to me, I'd shove my fist in to my mouth in a desperate attempt to smother my gasp. Because flies? Flies took me back _there_, to the crash site, to the sound they made around the open wound in my leg. Mark was like lead on my good thigh, and my arm was like lead on my body, barely able to wave them off. A wave of pain made me cry out at some point, and I had forced my dry eyes open to see Cristina pulling a bug the size of a coin out with a look akin to relief that I had responded in some way.

Flies were the first noise, and then were the noises of the animals.

It wasn't a flashback, it was purely memories, ones that throw themselves at you, smothering you with the truth of your past.

I had been trying, so hard, to be the woman my wife needed me to be, but I was choking on so many levels of emotion some days, I didn't know who that person was anymore. That's what she needed me to be though, the person she remembers. She has always wanted me to be her, and I have always delivered her up on a silver platter. Now, though? Now I don't even know if that woman will ever exist again.

But I love my wife. I refuse to make that past tense. Just sometimes, I resent her more than I love her.

That's a horrifying truth.

Regardless, I thought I had buried that down and had been on the way to feeling like myself.

Then I'd get lost, almost, in the wonder of who the hell myself was.

Lauren had looked at me, had known I was missing a leg and still looked at me like she was undressing me with her eyes. Lauren had been interested in who I was _now_, not who I had been back then. And that was just so refreshing, because it left me exhausted, trying to be that person.

Callie loved me, but she had so many expectations.

Sometimes, lying next to her, her face relaxed and breathtaking in sleep, I'd wonder if she was there out of a feeling of obligation, because how would I have looked after myself, after?

And how was I supposed to feel equal to her, when she'd found me in a pool of my own urine?

The memory of that would make my eyes sting with shame, like the smell had stung them then. She had found her wife sitting in her own waste; how, fuck, _how_, could she look at me with anything but disgust?

Lauren owed me nothing.

So I had risked everything, lost everything, in the end, the day I, yes _I_, had turned back to Lauren and kissed her, the words about control echoing in my head.

Callie would have forgiven me, I think, if that's where it had ended.

I don't know why I couldn't stop it, why I didn't just stop at kissing her, or not even kiss her to begin with. I can't even begin to really assess the reasons as to how I could sleep with her, why I turned back.

I had stopped it at an all out affair; just.

Though I could have done it, really, but the next day, when I had almost followed Lauren in to an on call room, I _really_ didn't know who I was any more.

I'd shaken my head at Lauren, hovering in the door of the room, and turned, leaving to find Callie standing at a nurses station.

She'd smiled at me, delighted to see me, and I almost threw up on her.

"Hey-I was looking all over for you?"

"I, uh, was caught up in the NICU. Power outage."

Her face had scrunched up, confused, even as she flicked through her phone, eyes half on that, half on the chart open in front of her. So unsuspecting I almost couldn't do it.

Life had trodden me down, but Jesus, it had done that to Callie, too.

"I looked in there and hadn't seen you-but then, I got wrapped up in some broken bones that came in after a mudslide." She looked up, that comfortable, cocky grin on her face, "Saved them all though."

I tried so hard to smile back at her.

"Can we go home? I need to talk to you?"

She'd looked up then, something in my tone, and looked concerned. God damn it, I needed her to not care so much.

"Are you okay?" She reached forward and rest a hand on my bicep, fingers curling around the muscle and I had to stop myself from flinching away the touch. I felt dirty, disjointed. "It's a bit early to leave after the devastation last night. Everything is a mess."

I smiled, because that I was good at that, being okay when inside I'm screaming.

"I just need to talk to you."

She nodded, and flipped the chart shut, phone dropping in her pocket, "Okay. You want to get Sofia and I'll meet you at the front?"

I nodded and turned, swallowing heavily as I started to walk away.

Fuck. Sofia.

I didn't know how to do this, without her being there. Where else could I do this? At the hospital, with everyone around?

I entered the day care and she came at me in all her toddler glory, "Momma!"

She barreled in to my good leg, and thanks to the practice I had with her, I managed to not fall over. She held her hands up, and in a move we now had down pat, I grasped her little ones in mine and she jumped as I pulled and then she was settled on my hip.

She grinned at me like I was the sunshine to her world and I, again, wondered what I had done.

I smothered her in kisses and signed her out and walked us to meet Callie, Sofia chattering childhood truths in my ear as I tried to swallow past the lump the size of a lemon in my throat.

I was about to blow her little world apart.

She still asks for Mark.

You'd barely know I was missing a limb, watching me walk with her.

You'd barely know I was missing something that made me _me_, looking at me.

Sofia threw herself at Callie when she walked up, breathless and apologetic for the wait. We walked, Sofia a buffer between us, to the apartment, Callie not able to hide the concern shadowing her eyes. As I let us in, she walked through the door, Sofia snuggled in to her hip, and said, "Oh, I saw Lauren on the way out, she said to let you know she was up for a drink if you wanted."

I stilled in the doorway, the door swinging shut behind me, the sound louder in my ears than it should be.

I knew she was brazen, but that, really?

Callie turned around at my silence and stood, the couch between us, Sofia still on her hip.

"What?"

God knows what my face looked like.

"I slept with Lauren."

I think she almost dropped Sofia. Silence swirled around us, deafening in its audacity. Callie's eyes were wide, they stared in to my own, and neither of us could move.

How, how could I say that with Sofia in her arms?

Because I had to say it. It had been building up, it wasn't me. An affair wasn't me, and I had to tell her. I am a lot of things, but I never have thought of myself as deceptive.

Sofia, sleepy on Callie's hip, held her hand out to me, to pull me in to the dancing circle the three of us always had in the living room, "Momma?"

I couldn't look at her, I couldn't take my eyes off Callie.

Who blinked, suddenly, snapping us out of it. She turned around, walking away.

"Calliope!" God, my voice, it was desperate.

She stopped dead and I realised, then, that that was the first time I had called her that since a plane fell from the sky and destroyed everything good I knew about life.

Her shoulders straightened and she walked through to Sofia's room. I don't know what she did to keep her in there, but in a minute she was back, standing before me where she had stood when I blurted it out at her.

She stared at me again, face like stone. I can always read Callie- you know her for five minutes, and you can read her.

I knew nothing of her, right then.

I knew nothing of myself.

"You slept with Lauren?"

I nodded.

"When?"

"L-last night."

She closed her eyes, opening them again, face still set.

"Where?" I blinked and wasn't sure what she meant. She stared at me, words cutting, "Supple closet? Scrub room? Janitors room?" She swallowed, "On call room?"

"O-on call room."

She crossed her arms, one eyebrow raised as she looked at me like she didn't recognise me. And I almost liked it, because it was nice to see that it wasn't only me who didn't know who I was.

"Classy, Arizona."

I didn't know what to say to that.

We stared at each other again, and I heard the strains of a Disney movie coming from Sofia's room, her delighted chatter at the screen. She liked to speak to the characters. In a bizarre way, in the living room where we had breathed and loved and become a family, even as I stood there ripping at every thread that made all that so, I almost asked that hadn't we decided no TV during the day for Sofia?

That moment of lapse into normalcy was gone in a second as Callie's cutting tone sliced out.

"How many times?"

"The once."

Each word that destroyed my marriage felt like a weight lifted off my chest, even as it dragged me back under.

She blinked, once, "That was nice of you."

I stepped back, weight shifting from prosthetic back to foot. "What?"

"Just once. That's nice." She gave the tiniest hint of a shrug, as if she knew if she moved too much, broke the set look on her face, she'd fall apart completely. Callie, this last year, had changed, too, "George, I think, did it more than once. Maybe. So that's nice."

I shut my eyes for a moment, and opened them. She can say what she wants, I've earned every harsh word.

If Mark were alive, I honestly think he'd punch me.

But part of the reason we _are _here is Mark not being alive. If that fucking plane hadn't crashed, we wouldn't be here and one of us would most likely be bitching that Mark wouldn't leave us alone.

Or maybe he and Lexie would have finally gotten their act together, and his life would be Lexie and Sofia.

I closed my eyes again, squeezing them tight, before I fell in to those thoughts and lost myself there, when my wife was looking at me here with an emotion I didn't know on her face.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me, Arizona?"

I stared at her, desperate to say I was when I really, really wasn't.

Her lip trembled then, the only hint, and I felt tears spill down my cheek.

Her eyebrows pressed together, disgust on her face, as she saw that. The first emotion I recognised.

I was used to emotional Callie. To Callie in the airport, to Callie with tears, with wide eyes, with hurt looks and it written all over her face. To ranting Callie, loud, filled with expression.

I didn't know this Callie.

I didn't know this Arizona, either, so well played, universe.

Neither of us are the people we were.

"Why?"

She managed to ask it without her tone breaking at all.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

"Oh? Don't want to answer that. Right." She was just so calm, "So did she fuck you? Or did you fuck her? Both? Same time? I'm assuming it was in the middle of the storm, so it would probably have had to be quick."

I stared at her.

"Well, pick one, answer one."

I swallowed, "I don't know why."

She gave a horrible, tiny laugh then, "Oh, you'll have reasons. You always have reasons, excuses. You analyse everything, even if you don't say any of it to me." She raised her eyebrow at me again, "So, why? Or did you want to answer how?"

Her lip trembled again, behind this hideous bravado she was managing, and my cheeks were wet and I could barely comprehend that.

"Why or how, Arizona?" Her voice had gotten harsher.

"I don't know why." My tone was slightly harsher, emphasised.

She just stared at me. She wanted something, anything.

"We haven't been right, for a long time, Callie."

It was weak.

She gave that horrible laugh again, "No shit." She swallowed then, and her look almost softened. Almost. "I thought we were getting better."

"I was trying."

"Were you, though?" She threw it at me, but I couldn't let her have that one. Anything, but not that.

"Yes. God, yes, Callie, I was trying. All I've done is try."

"Trying with your fingers in some bitch doesn't really count." I winced at that. "Oh, sorry. It's okay to do but not to hear about?"

I bit back a retort. It would be so easy, to start a yelling match.

It would almost be nice, after months and months of what this had been. To yell, both of us, to scream at each other, to say things, everything, anything, until we were left, breathless, bare and broken, vulnerable, everything bottled up laid out between us for examination.

Sofia's giggle floated out.

"I've been trying, Callie."

She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes at me, and it made me want to retreat in to myself-does she even know how often she dismisses what I say?

"So what, it's all been pretend? You've faked it all." I watched her face almost panic then, before she got that look back on her face, that mask of cool, "Jesus. Have you been _faking_ it?"

I shouldn't be surprised, that that occurred to her. I was so busy focusing on the entirety of our marriage being broken, that her being vulnerable about that, hadn't occurred to me.

On how many levels had I just destroyed this woman?

I dropped my arms and shook my head emphatically, the motion making me lose my balance slightly. I managed to get a chair under my hand to steady myself, and tried not to think about the fact that for the first time since I lost my limb, Callie didn't step forward to help.

"No, Callie. God, no. It wasn't about _that_."

"Oh, what a relief." The sarcasm physically hurt, and for the second time, I winced.

I was at a loss, of where to go with this, of what to say. I don't know how to be this person.

"So, you were saying?" Her manner was almost perversely polite, "You've been trying but apparently I completely missed that you weren't actually okay."

I swallowed, and tried to make my tone gentler, to take the anger out, "You had missed that."

The words echoed around us and that damn lip trembled again, "What do you mean?"

God, her voice almost cracked on that last word.

I tightened my grip on the back of the chair, "You so wanted me to be okay, that you took any offering that I was. If ever I wasn't, you couldn't handle it, and so I tried. And you took what I gave."

She was staring at me, "I tried to make you open up, for months. I lost my best friend, I'd practically lost my wife, and you blame me for wanting you to be _you?_"

My voice was angrier than it should be, control gone, "Yes! Because I'm not me. I tried, but I'm not. Callie, I am just _not_."

She almost flinched as I all but yelled the last word. A desperation played in her tone.

Callie kept her voice steady, "No, you're not. The woman I married would never have fucked someone else in an on call room while her wife and daughter were in the building."

The truth just kept making me wince, "No, she wouldn't have."

Callie stared at me, the significance of those words sinking in for both of us.

"So what, you looked in to Lauren's," there, her voice finally did falter, but she kept on and you may have thought you imagined it, "eyes and she just _knew_ the real you?"

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

"Answer me, damn it."

"No. But she didn't expect me to be anyone except who I am, now."

We stared at each other again. Is it possible to have too much history? Too much to sweep under the rug? I think you'd need a canyon, to sweep our pasts in to, and even then, the evidence would rise up, floating on the breeze to fly back in our faces.

"I want you. I've wanted _you_. I wanted you, in every way."

She really thinks she did.

"No, you wanted perfect me, you wanted the old me."

"So she just _gets_ you. She gets this new Arizona?"

"I-no, it's not about that. It's not about _her._ It could have been anyone!"

Callie stepped back, like the words had physically hit her, and I knew how that sounded but there was a truth to it, though I wasn't sure if she would understand what I meant by that. I don't know if I understand it.

"So you would've fucked anyone? Would've thrown this away, for any quick fuck?"

I opened my mouth, closing it, again, with no idea how to answer.

We stood, glaring at each other, and there it was. Her eyes were glazed over, shimmering with unshed tears. I felt another one fall past and onto my cheek, the sight of Callie, like that, like always, making me react. How long had I been matching her steps, stepping back as she stepped forward, forward as she did backwards?

"Get out, Arizona."

I didn't move.

"Get. Out."

So I did.

I flicked my gaze to the room that held my daughter, then turned.

I could at least give Callie this.

I had missed Mark, then, randomly and out of the blue, him on a long list of things I just didn't let myself think about, because who did Callie have to turn to? Who was left, in Callie's life? Who did she have, to get her through this?

I'm another one, now, who has fucked up and hurt her.

After months of trying to hold it together, for her, after almost a year, of destroying myself to try and be who she wanted to be, in the space of half an hour, I ruined her.

Irony? Idiocy.

And when I left, I'd stood on the road for a minute, realising I no where to go

I ended up at Karev's house.

Because Callie may have no one.

But, fuck, neither did I.

#

**This originally had Arizona ending up at Lauren's...but that has been in the other one shots and I kind of like the idea of Arizona, Cristina and Alex all living together. Am I right, Ressick?**


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